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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27929224">be the thing that buries me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dana_norram/pseuds/dana_norram'>dana_norram</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>it is not enough to say (love) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Come as Lube, Crusades Era Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani &amp; Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Enemies to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Muslim Character, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Content</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:14:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,000</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27929224</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dana_norram/pseuds/dana_norram</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Yusuf shudders when Nicolò opens his eyes, something akin to fear in them, and he wants to weep because the last time they had their faces so close together, he also had his hands around Nicolò’s throat. He knows he will never forget the moment the life went out of them.<br/></p>
</blockquote>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>it is not enough to say (love) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>82</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>437</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>be the thing that buries me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_si_puedes/gifts">sal_si_puedes</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a companion piece to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27583967">A potter’s field</a>, but it can be read as standalone.</p><p>A warm round of applause to the lovely <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ririsasy">riri</a> and her precious help with the Muslim practices and to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/sal_si_puedes/">Aqua</a>, who so kindly offered to take a look in this. She also cheered me on when this was no more than a rough outline, so I guess this is for her?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yusuf bites back a groan when Nicolò sinks down on his cock.</p><p>It burns a little. It’s an aching spark at the edge of his vision, a lightning bolt in a cloudy night. He wants to close his eyes and lose himself in the imminent storm, but he will not. At least one of them should keep watch tonight.</p><p>It’s the first time, after all, they are doing this face to face.</p><p>Nicolò has his eyelids squeezed shut. He is so impossibly tight, impossibly warm, and Yusuf wants to tell him to slow down, or to go faster <i>please</i>, to get this over with, but his own tongue and pleas feel dry as white sand. He cannot help picturing a sharp blade and a fatal wound trying to close, to heal itself just one more time. Even if he lives a thousand years, he knows he will never forget the sound of Nicolò’s dying gasps.</p><p>He breathes. He breathes and watches as Nicolò rides his cock in a slow pace, short and unsure thrusts, and he does not know what to do with his hands. He <i>wants</i> to touch Nicolò’s face, and he can admit he is scared of what will happen if he does. Yusuf was never a proud man. Maybe if he was, he would be allowed to die, even if ultimately barred from paradise. He knows he has sinned greatly; and every day, as he lived and died and lived again, he has regretted far less than he thought he should.</p><p>He had no qualms about grabbing Nicolò’s hips as he took him from behind over and over during the past months. He had no problem chasing his pleasure and emptying his release inside Nicolò’s warm, pliant body, and he did not have any problems allowing himself a few moments of peace afterward, chest pressed against Nicolò’s back, lips ghosting over his neck, before he managed to get hold of himself and pull out. Before he went back to sleep on his own bedroll, on his own side.</p><p>He remembers the first daybreak outside Jerusalem more than anything else. He could barely feel his hands back then, skin stained and sticky in red.</p><p>He had died with Nicolò’s sword through his chest, drowned in his own blood. He had died with Nicolò’s hot breath against his ear, a tight hold around his neck, one lasting embrace. He had died with his skull split in half, crushed with a piece from the very wall he dutifully had guarded with his own life.</p><p>Throughout that night, he had killed and was killed, and when he had finally opened his eyes to feel the sun again on his face, he realised they were entangled like lovers, Nicolò’s prone form against his, a dagger buried in his back, and he had rolled over in shock, a scream trapped in his chest. So he had done the only thing he had been able to think of. With tears burning his eyes, Yusuf had looked around and faced <i>Qibla</i>.</p><p>He thought it would be harder to do the <i>Subh</i> prayer after everything, but the intentions in his heart were clear as the dawn falling around them. He knew he could not go through another day, another night of gasping back to life only to kill or to be killed by the same man. So he bowed his head to the ground, and he prayed. He asked for forgiveness. He asked for strength. He asked for it all to be over. God could not want more of him, surely?</p><p>He dreamt about the long night in all the months that followed, and he knew Nicolò did it as well, though they never talked about it. The only dreams they shared were the ones of the two women riding in faraway lands.</p><p>Yusuf and Nicolò never talked about the stench of the rotting corpses of their fellow soldiers or the haunting flapping of the wings as vultures feasted upon them. They did not talk about the pain of each death, not even tonight, when Yusuf screamed himself awake and sat on his bed, both hands covering his face. He remained silent as he felt a shadow moving to his side, and he accepted in silence when Nicolò offered his waterskin so he could wet his parched lips.</p><p>Nicolò did not move after Yusuf thanked him. He did not retreat to his own bed. Maybe he had had a nightmare of his own and could not face his demons alone. Maybe he knew Yusuf could not go back to sleep so soon after, not with the fresh smell of Jerusalem burning in his memory, or with the bitter taste of iron and steel at the back of his throat. Maybe Nicolò noticed his shaking hands, saw his fast heartbeat against his throat, because instead of giving Yusuf the space he needed, what Nicolò did was put his waterskin aside and drop to his knees before him.</p><p>He felt he should have protested, but he was not able not find the words as Nicolò’s warm fingers wrapped around his semi-hard cock. Yusuf choked when Nicolò bent forward and closed his lips around it and his whole body became one single aching muscle as he tried not to buck his hips up. He could not help but grab his hair. He caressed it for a while, and he tugged against Nicolò’s scalp as he felt himself getting too close. Yusuf whimpered at the loss when Nicolò took it as a sign to let go off him and to straddle his lap instead, eyes closed, breathing shallow, burning.</p><p>Yusuf clenches his teeth at the overwhelming sensation of their bodies joined, Nicolò’s spit barely easing the friction, and he finally finds a use for his hands when he puts them around Nicolò’s hips and makes him stop moving. Yusuf shudders when Nicolò opens his eyes, something akin to fear in them, and he wants to weep because the last time they had their faces so close together, he also had his hands around Nicolò’s throat. He knows he will never forget the moment the life went out of them.</p><p>He tries to be gentle as he flips their positions, as he presses Nicolò down into his bed. With his cock still inside of him, he watches as Nicolò’s pale eyes widen in shock, as his shiny, swollen lips gasp in an amalgam of pleasure and pain. With Nicolò’s legs around his hips, urging him to move, Yusuf takes a deep breath, ignores his silent plea. Instead, he slips a hand between their bodies, closes a fist around Nicolò’s leaking cock. He strokes him, firmly, hastily, with intent. He watches as Nicolò struggles in his hold and how he grabs the sheets beneath him until he finally succumbs and comes with a choked and confused sound.</p><p>It takes Yusuf all his willpower to not follow suit as Nicolò’s body tightens around him, and he pulls out soon after, using his fingers wet with Nicolò’s release to slick himself up before pushing his cock back in, the friction now only a pleasant, lingering sensation.</p><p>As Yusuf shadows Nicolò’s body, he wonders why this feel like a fight still, but the man under him offers no battle. He moves along with his thrusts, like a dance, his hands on Yusuf’s shoulders, a knee pressed around his hip, the heel of an ankle against his tailbone urging him in, faster, deeper, <i>yes</i>.</p><p>Up close, Yusuf can see how Nicolò’s lips become red and pink and red again as he bites them to control his sounds, and he does not know why that vision makes his heart beat faster in the same way he never knew for sure what made him decide to stop killing Nicolò all those months ago. He knows he could have cut off Nicolò’s head as he struggled back to his feet. Maybe he should have. Maybe that would have been the only way for both of them to die at last. Yusuf does not know what stopped him. He had never had a problem with putting a dying animal out of its misery.</p><p>He remembers how the smoke coming from the Holy City made his eyes tear up as he got up from his prayers. He had been able to distinguish screams and pleas in different languages being carried out by the wind. He had wanted to grab a sword and run back inside the crumbling walls, to kill as many infidels as he could, but as soon as he had noticed something moving at the edge of his vision, Yusuf had known he was not going anywhere.</p><p>He had truly thought God had forsaken him. He had bowed and he had asked for forgiveness, for strength, and he got nothing in return but hatred and fear in his heart. He could have run away, of course, but he knew he would not get very far. Not like that, cursed and tarnished as he was. So he had stared in silence, defeated, as the man covered in blood and gore just like him had struggled back to life. And maybe that was the why, the when. When he had realised he was not alone in that world, and maybe that was why he had done the foolish, the impossible thing.</p><p>Nicolò’s moans grow louder as Yusuf’s thrusts become faster, and he looks down at him, words tangled in his chest. He does not want to stop his sounds. He does not. He would fight any soul who tried to silence them, and Nicolò must have noticed the way he is staring down at him because he raises his fingers, hesitates before he gets too close to his face, and yes, it feels just like that summer morning when Yusuf extended his own hand and waited for his enemy to take it.</p><p>He had not realised it then, but he does now. No truce could be achieved unless both sides had lost enough. Unless both wanted the same.</p><p>And Nicolò’s eyes grow larger than life when Yusuf accepts his offer now, as he allows him to press a hand against his face with a smile. Nicolò lets out a shaky breath as buries his fingers in Yusuf’s beard and caresses the coarse hair in wonder. He feels lightheaded and elated by Nicolò’s gentle touch, just like he did when he decided he couldn’t bear to take another life, the same life, again and again.</p><p>He doesn’t know who moves in first. If it is Nicolò, urging him down with the hand on his cheek, or if it is himself, brushing their noses together.</p><p>He closes his eyes when their lips meet for the first time, his vigil finally abandoned as he is engulfed by the warmth of Nicolò’s mouth, the wetness of his tongue, the sharpness of his teeth. With a sting in his chest, he realises Nicolò has no idea of what he’s doing, so he takes control of it, a hand on his chin, and presses a soft tongue against his, slow and careful. Nicolò whimpers as he follows his lead, and it breaks Yusuf’s heart, to know this man had learned how to kill before he learned how to kiss.</p><p>He resumes his thrusts, hips snapping in a faster, broken rhythm, tongue inside Nicolò’s mouth, sounds vibrating against each other, music from Nicolò’s body into his. It is a shadow of a smile against his lips that finally tips him over the edge, and he buries his moans on Nicolò’s tongue as he empties himself inside his body.</p><p>When he finally comes to his senses, it is to the soothing tempo of Nicolò’s chest where he lays his head. Yusuf hesitates to pull out, aware of the mess on both their stomachs and between their entangled legs. Inside their hearts.</p><p>Maybe they have gone too far this time.</p><p>Maybe they would never get this far without each other.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments and kudos are very much appreciated, I'd love to know your thoughts about this story. I am <a href="http://negotiumcrucis.tumblr.com/">negotiumcrucis</a> on Tumblr, if you want to say hi.</p><p>The sequence of Yusuf and Nicolò killing each other outside Jerusalem’s walls was taken almost panel by panel from the comics, but I added some personal headcanons to the mix because why the hell not.</p><p>Title’s from <b>Interactive :: House Saints</b>, a beautiful poem by Hala Alyan. You can (and you <i>should</i>) check the whole thing <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/151815/interactive-house-saints">here</a>, but the fragment in question reads:</p><p>“It is not enough<br/>to say <i>love</i> in Arabic.<br/>You must say<br/><i>be the thing that buries me,</i><br/>that turns the clock back to its first hour.”</p></blockquote></div></div>
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